This meta analysis examined the results of 24 studies in which traditionally certified teachers were compared with teachers with a variety of other kinds of certificates. The 24 studies allowed for the computation of 192 effect sizes, and 7 kinds of comparison were performed. Findings suggest that traditional teacher training is at least as effective as alternate route training and more effective than minimal (emergency) certification. However, it is clear that some alternative teacher training programs are equally effective in providing quality teachers, and one important predictor of differences in program effectiveness was the location at which teachers were studied (and often trained). The role of experience was highlighted in the comparisons of in-field and out-of-field teacher. In this situation, differences were not apparent for new teachers, but findings favored experienced in-field teachers. An additional finding was that the studies of these alternate routes to teacher certification vary greatly and are not always well reported. Multiple confounded study characteristics appear to relate to the magnitudes of differences that were found, but much addition that might have been of use to the analyses were not reported. (Contains 9 tables and 45 references.) (SLD)